When Dad Says No, Ask Mom

Referred to as “the university of the people” by alumnus Charles Kuralt in his iconic 1993 bicentennial address, UNC has a governance structure designed to ensure accountability to North Carolina’s taxpayers, whom the university was chartered to serve. All authority in the UNC System flows from the people’s elected representatives in the North Carolina General Assembly to the Board of Governors, which sets overarching policy. The board delegates authority to the system president, who executes policy, and to each constituent institution’s chancellor and board of trustees, who provide localized oversight.

Chancellor Roberts’s recent appointment of a provost without Board of Trustees approval represents an effort to circumvent the trustees’ traditional role. The delegation of authority among these bodies is designed to promote effective governance and accountability. Yet Chancellor Lee Roberts’s recent appointment of Magnus Egerstedt as Chapel Hill’s executive vice chancellor and provost without Board of Trustees approval represents an effort to circumvent the trustees’ traditional role. This move was facilitated by ambiguous and even contradictory language in the UNC System’s policies, particularly the president’s 2024 revisions to the “Policy on the Delegations of Authority and Granting of Management Flexibility on Human Resources Matters,” which now allows chancellors to secure high-level hires with a presidential sign-off alone.

This move was facilitated by ambiguous and even contradictory language in the UNC System’s policies. State law grants each board of trustees the power to “promote the sound development of the institution … aiding it to perform at a high level of excellence in every area of endeavor.” Each board of trustees advises the chancellor and the Board of Governors on “the management and development of the institution.” In turn, the chancellor is “responsible for carrying out policies of the Board of Governors and of the Board of Trustees.” The UNC Policy Manual further delineates the division of authority between the chancellor and the boards of trustees, delegating specific oversight roles—particularly in personnel, academic programs, and institutional development—to ensure balanced, localized governance.

Under Appendix 1 of The Code of the University of North Carolina, the Board of Governors delegates key personnel authority to boards of trustees. Upon the chancellor’s recommendation, the trustees at several constituent institutions, including UNC-Chapel Hill, are empowered to appoint, promote, and set compensation for positions exempt from the North Carolina Human Resources Act, including senior academic and administrative officers other than the chancellor. This delegation underscores the UNC-Chapel Hill trustees’ traditional role in providing local oversight for high-level hires. The appointments of UNC-Chapel Hill’s previous two provosts, Chris Clemens and Bob Blouin, were both approved by the Board of Trustees upon the recommendation of the chancellor.

Recently, however, Chapel Hill’s trustees have noticed that many appointments are bypassing the board entirely. Trustee Marty Kotis tells the Martin Center that “there have been some significant changes to authority … some things come before us and other things don’t, and we have a really hard time figuring out who is responsible for what.”

This lack of clarity stems from contradictory provisions in the UNC Policy Manual and policy alterations by the system president resulting in what can be described only as poor governance. Another provision in the UNC Policy Manual, 600.3.4, initially mirrors the delegation of hiring authority to the boards of trustees in Appendix 1. Yet Section II.C of the same policy grants the president broad discretion to “modify, suspend, or limit one or more of the aforementioned delegations of authority … by administrative memorandum,” effectively enabling unilateral changes that undermine the intended balance of authority. One point of interest is that, while the president has had this power since at least 2022, he has only recently begun to use it.

According to the UNC System, President Peter Hans exercised his modification authority in August 2024 to revise provision 600.3.4. Regulation 600.3.4[R] grants chancellors the option to secure approval for senior academic and administrative officer (SAAO) appointments—excluding the chancellor position—directly from the president or his designee. This change bypasses the traditional requirement of board of trustees sign-off for these high-level hires, shifting the final decisionmaking power upward to the system’s top executive and reducing localized trustee oversight.

The phrasing of the president’s revision, that “the chancellor may make all permanent and temporary appointments” with presidential approval (emphasis added), creates uncertainty and erodes accountability. Trustees are left in the dark about which appointments will come before them for approval, and the chancellor is empowered to choose whether to seek approval from the trustees or the president for a given hire. If Dad says no, just ask Mom instead.

The phrasing of the president’s revision creates uncertainty and erodes accountability. Furthermore, this modification directly contradicts the delegation of authority to the boards of trustees under Appendix 1 of The Code. Boards of trustees, whose purpose is to oversee the operations of their respective campuses and ensure accountability, are explicitly empowered—upon the chancellor’s recommendation—to approve SAAO appointments at special responsibility constituent institutions such as UNC-Chapel Hill. This longstanding delegation vests trustees with final decisionmaking power as a check against centralized overreach. The president’s 2024 revision undermines this crucial separation by rerouting approvals upward—and is not mirrored in Appendix 1.

Members of the boards of trustees are appointed precisely to deliver campus-specific oversight. In the case of incoming provost Magnus Egerstedt, UNC-Chapel Hill chancellor Lee Roberts elected to obtain approval from President Hans, depriving trustees of the opportunity to vote. Even in cases where trustees have been granted an opportunity to vote, their ability to make an informed decision has been hindered. For example, the recent appointment of Dr. Cristy Page as CEO of UNC Health was sent to the Board of Trustees for approval, but, according to Trustee Marty Kotis, it came as an oral presentation with no advance materials, forcing several trustees to abstain because they “did not have prior notice or any information.”

The erosion of boards of trustees’ authority—coupled with the withholding of key information even when trustees are allowed to vote—reveals a clear pattern: consolidating power in the hands of the chancellor and president at the direct expense of trustees’ oversight role. Members of boards of trustees are appointed precisely to deliver campus-specific oversight and are attuned to the unique needs of their institution and the community it serves. Policies that undermine this authority, sow confusion by contradicting delegations in other sections of The Code, and create unpredictability do not promote efficient or accountable governance—they subvert the core purpose of localized trustee oversight, hinder accountability in hiring, and erode the checks and balances that safeguard sound university administration.

The North Carolina General Assembly, which holds ultimate authority over the UNC System, should restore the sensible delegation of hiring authority in Appendix 1 of The Code by amending the president’s 2024 alteration of policy 600.3.4—an alteration enabled by the Board of Governors’ overly broad grant of modification power to the president. Doing so would safeguard the principles of decentralized, campus-specific oversight enshrined in state law and reinforce boards’ statutory role to “promote the sound development of the institution.”

Harrington Shaw is a J.D. candidate at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, an economics and philosophy graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill, and a former Martin Center intern.